Kodak released an updated version of T-MAX 400 (400-2TMY) a couple years
ago in late 2007. Certain improvements were made, including increasing the
sharpness of the film, reducing grain, and removing the UV blocking layer in
sheet format, a feature aimed alternative process printers. Personally, I
think it’s amazing that a new film, much less a new B&W film was introduced at
this time. Despite my excitement about this, I’d never shot any of the new
film, from here on out referred to as TMY-2. This is partially due to the fact
that my 400 speed film of choice is Tri-X (400TX).

To be honest, I’d never shot the original T-MAX 400 either. One only has to
Google “tmax trix” to find plenty of people listing the differences of
the two films. I didn’t believe most of them when I started shooting B&W about
4 years ago, and I don’t believe them now. However, I did succumb to the long
history of Tri-X and the belief that it was more flexible and slightly faster
than T-MAX 400. As a result, I never got around to trying out T-MAX 400,
though I do use T-MAX 3200 (P3200TMZ) quite a bit.

Needless to say, I finally got around to testing these films. I also decided
to test P3200TMZ and Delta 3200 as well. All films were fresh. Other parts of
these tests focus on pushability and stand development. For now we will just
focus on the differences between TMY, TX, and TMZ.

Testing procedure

TMY and TX were exposed at 400, while the TMZ was exposed at 800. Kodak’s tech
pubs say that TMZ is really ISO 800-1000. I used an incident meter to get the
initial reading.

The scene was setup and illuminated with one movie-style light set at 3200 K.
The kitchen lights were also on, providing a small fill for the shadows. The
scene consisted of a Kodak gray scale chart, a Kodak color chart, a Color
Checker Passport, an empty TMZ box, a red beer bottle, and a couple of other
trinkets. The glass owl on the right is made out of uranium glass and has a
distinctive green color. The figure on top of the TMZ box is red, while the
3-eyed figure is baby blue with a pink mouth.

The scene was shot on a tripod mounted Leica M with a 50 ASPH Summilux. The
400 speed films were shot at f/4 while the TMZ was shot at f/8. Focus was on
the Color Checker.

The tests were all shot at the same time and developed similarly. The
developer used was XTOL 1:1. The TMY and TX were done at 72°, while the TMZ
was done at 75°. I used the times right out of the Kodak tech pubs. My
agitation technique is pretty consistent. I agitate for the first 10 seconds
and then 5 inversions every 30 seconds for the duration of the time.

All frames were scanned on a Nikon Coolscan V with Vuescan at 4000 dpi, using
the methods outlined here. In short, they were scanned flat and adjusted
in Photoshop. Scans were not sharpened.

Prints were also printed in the darkroom on a Beseler 23CII with condensor
head. All prints were made on 8x10 Ilford Multigrade RC paper at grade 2 and
developed in fresh Ilford Multigrade developer. The full frame prints were
made with a Rodenstock 50mm f/2.8 APO Rodagon N at f/6.7, while the crop
prints were made with a Rodenstock 80mm f/4 APO Rodagon N at f/8. The crop
prints were small sections of prints that would be roughly 26 inches by 19
inches.

Initial comments

I’ve always wished that TX was a bit grainier, since this is part of its
heritage, but it’s never been that grainy for me. This might be due to my
choice of developer (XTOL 1:1). Maybe Rodinal would be better. This was part
of my mindset about never using TMY; I always wanted just a bit more bite than
TX was giving me, so why switch to something that has even finer grain?
Investigating grain properties of these films was part of my motivation for
doing this test.

I must state a caveat about this test. It was only shot in tungsten lighting
and developed in XTOL 1:1. Your findings might be completely different
depending on the situations you shoot in, how you meter, how you develop, and
what you do post developing.

Scanning

Clicking on any of the images takes you to the full 5600 x 3700 jpg scan.

400-2TMY scan

400TX scan

P3200TMZ scan

400-2TMY crop

400TX crop

P3200TMZ crop

Comments on the scans

Grain wise, the TMY and TX scans look very similar to my eye. In fact, I
might even like the character of the TMY grain more. The TX grain is slightly
more non-uniform in areas of continuous tone. TMY looks grainier to me in the
darker tones (to the left of the bottle and the bottle), while TX looks
grainier in the lighter tones (the back wall). They meet in the middle, as
seen on the right side of the Kodak gray scale card. This could be due to post
processing, scanning, or any other number of factors. Regardless, if you scan
like I do, your results might be similar.

The TMZ is noticeably grainier.

As far as adjusting the scans for tonality and contrast, I didn’t make an
extreme effort to keep them looking the same. Slight adjustments with the
curves can change the tonal distribution quite a bit, especially in the
shadows. Don’t read too much into specific tonal distributions between the
films. One must really work with the images themselves. To this extent, the
unadjusted scans (as jpegs) are available here: 400-2TMY, 400TX,
and P3200TMZ. I feel as if the grade 2 darkroom prints avoid some of
this issue.

There was plenty of headroom on the scans above the captured highlights. Even
on shots that were overexposed (not shown here) and/or overdeveloped had some
recorded density in the highlights—they weren’t blown out, including the
specular highlights on the bottle and the toaster. This only makes sense, as
the density of highlights of a properly developed B&W negative is much lower
than limits of the Coolscan. Of course, it is possible to get densities that
are unscannable as many modern B&W films are able to build very high
densities, but unless you are shooting in situations with incredibly high
brightness ranges, or grossly mis-process or overexpose your film, this
shouldn’t be an issue. You can also always pull your development to
compensate.

Prints

Images

Clicking on any of the images takes you to the roughly 1400 x 1200 jpg scan of
the respective prints. Full 600 dpi scans of the 8x10 full frame prints are
available here: 400-2TMY, 400TX, and P3200TMZ. These are
only put up for completeness’s sake - the medium sized images available by
clicking below show plenty of detail.

400-2TMY print

400TX print

P3200TMZ print

400-2TMY crop print

400TX crop print

P3200TMZ crop print

Comments on the prints

The character of the grain stands out more in the wet prints. TX looks
grainier all across the board compared to TMY. This is especially obvious on
the 8x10 print in the back wall. In the crop prints, brief inspection shows
that TX looks grainier everywhere.

Obviously TMZ is grainier than both. It also appears that it was developed to
a higher CI than other films by accident, because the grade 2 print has more
contrast than the other prints. This could have been fixed by printing
slightly softer.

Final thoughts

TMY is noticeably sharper than TX, particularly in fine detail. This is
visible in 8x10 prints, where the actual image size was only 8.5 inches by 6
inches. The millimeter rule tick marks and the serial number on the upper left
corner of the Color Checker are visibly cleaner in the TMY shot compared to
the TX. This is evident in all the prints and scans. The big surprise is that
TMZ renders fine detail better than TX too, though this is to be expected if
one believes the MTF charts in the Kodak tech pubs.

I don’t know how to explain the differences in grain between the scanned and
wet printed TX and TMY. Maybe grain aliasing has something to do with it. The
scanned TX and TMZ grain is in line with what I’ve gotten in the past.

TMY seems to have less sensitivity to red. The figure on the TMZ box is
slightly darker as is the beer bottle. In these cases, this works against TMY.
However, the 3-eyed figure’s pink mouth is differentiated in tone from his
baby blue body better on TMY than on TX. Also, TMY renders the white ‘drop
shadow’ on the ‘P3200’ logo on the TMZ box much better than TX does.

I think I underdeveloped the TMY a tiny bit. It doesn’t look as dense, though
it scanned and printed just fine. The printing time for the TMY was quicker
than the TX, and the final prints came out very similar looking in terms of
tones, so maybe I didn’t under develop the TMY. I’ll have to think about this.

TMY and TX seem to be basically the same speed. They both had almost equal
amounts of shadow detail. Pushability of these films will come later. In shots
overexposed by one stop, not shown here, there might be a tiny bit of more
detail in dark shadow area to the left of the Kodak color chart in the TX shot
compared to the TMY shot. The same area looks virtually identical in shots
overexposed by 2 stops. If TX is faster, it is by an insignificant amount in
this test.

TMZ was noticeably faster than the other two. Not only did it have half the
exposure as the other films since it was rated at 800, but there was more
detail in the shadows. This isn’t particularly visible in the corrected scans
or the prints, but in the uncorrected scans, detail on the back wall in the
shadows to the left of the Kodak color chart are visible in the TMZ shot that
are simply not recorded on film in the TMY and TX shots. It looks like less
than a stop; I believe the ISO 1000 rating.

I noticed if left to my own devices, I tended to correct the scans to a lower
contrast than what I got on a grade 2 wet print. The wet prints look more or
less ‘right’ to me. I might tweak the contrast a bit, but it wouldn’t be a big
departure from what I ended up with, though the TMZ print could be at a softer
grade.

Lastly, a comment on the supposed finicky nature of T-MAX films and TMY in
particularly. This was the first time I have ever shot TMY in any form and
developed it. I followed the directions in the tech pub and got perfectly
scannable and printable negatives.